California Prison Population Swells

If we live in such a free country, why must so many be locked up? A story in the Los Angeles Times chronicles a prison population swelling well beyond capacity: “The fire marshal routinely approves such prison requests: ‘How are you going to tell them no?’ asked Hugh Council of the state fire marshal’s northern region. ‘They have to put them someplace.'” But as I’ve previously posted on disunitedstates.org, according to statistics published by the King’s College of London, the U.S. already locks up a larger proportion of its population than any other country in the world.